But these people don’t appear all that often in venues where the normal news-gathering citizen can see and hear them. They certainly don’t often get interviewed on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

And, of course, we know why. ABC, CBS, and NBC are dishonest brokers of information. The left-wing narrative affects their world view and skews their news. They look at a tea party demonstration of ten thousand and spot one racist and declare him a representative element of an essentially radical movement. They look at 750 Occupy protesters, see 700 slobs, thugs, and anti-semites, and declare them an anomalous sideshow of a mainstream uprising. Sometimes they actually lie — by commission or omission — but just as often, I think, they simply see what they expect to see and are incapable of seeing or reporting anything else. (To see more clearly they would have to hire someone perhaps a little bit less biased than, say, Chelsea Clinton.)

They don’t interview thoughtful, polite, well-informed, and insightful conservatives like VDH and Jonah Goldberg because that’s not what a conservative looks like to them. No southern accents? No bad grammar, no angry displays or signs of bigotry? Sharp minds capable of vivisecting the left’s make-believe world and absurd worldview? I mean, dude, what’s up with that?

Which leads me to what I consider the central riddle of the right. Why don’t we make more attempts to seize the mainstream back from the dishonest left? Why don’t we create venues that are inviting to the independents and undecideds and even the uninterested, where we can put our best minds and talents on display? If there’s one Fox News that’s incredibly successful, why not another aimed toward the youth market and another aimed toward high cultural types ala NPR and others whose central product is not political but is informed by American values and principles? Fox and Rush and the others reach the energized political right, God bless them. But why aren’t we reaching out for everyone else as well?

We finally have information outlets that serve our own. But the left is smart enough to fight for the mainstream.

60 Comments, 30 Threads

1.
Shane

I’d say, bit by bit, we ARE fighting back. I’m a college student at WSU (Washington State University) where leftism is/was running rampant. But more and more I’m seeing these students wake up to reality and start to understand exactly what conservatism is and they’re embracing it. Slowly, but it’s coming around nonetheless.

Thank you for taking the time to post here. As the father of four children who are now adults, I am encouraged by your observations. Our future depends on the younger generation seeing through the heavy indoctination my generation naively allowed to slip into your generations “education”. Go forth and multiple.

This is encouraging, Shane. But the overriding truth in your statement is that most college students have to work much harder to obtain and express conservative views than to accept the left-leaning positions they are routinely fed.

If you thought that was encouraging, try this: the main mentality of college students these days is that “rebellion is cool.” Ironically enough, it’s by that motto that a lot of students are rebelling against the doctrines taught by these left-leaning professors. Amazing, isn’t it? By becoming conservative and adopting the conservative lifestyle, these students are now considered rebels. And that’s COOL!

Reading your work is like sitting down with like minded friends , having a few beers and talking about the world and its problems, but if there is one thing I admire about you it’s your optimism.
I used to have that,and the only thing that keeps a glimmer of that optimism alive is the love I have for God, my family,my country and the knowledge that we have people like yourself on our side.
With that being said. What do we do? How do you fight something that makes absolutely no sense??? I look around me and besides the anger I feel there is an incredible sadness. We live in an era where we have so much to thank God for, yet everyone is complaining. The poorest person in this country would look like a rich man compared to the poor in someplace like Somalia. It’s as if almost the entire population has been brainwashed into believing that up is down, right is wrong and wrong is not just right ,but noble. How do you enlighten people who believe they are OPPRESSED while texting on their Iphones.Trust me, my life is not easy, I’m not rich, I suffer every single day with crippling back pain and yet I don’t blame anyone for anything,I don’t take a dime from the Government, I get my a@# out of bed every morning and do the best I can. Andrew how do you fight against people who believe that because they exist they are owed something?

Wisdom is the best weapon and it comes with age, knowledge and responsibilities. Western system of voting does not provide for it. It is vulgar one person – one vote.
For a start, there is a very important group, which is not represented in any election, though most politicians admitting (dishonestly as usual) that this is the most important group in the society. This group is children. The parents care about them, look after them, spending a lot of money on their education, food, cloth and other things, but have no no more to say about their future then other people with no children. Ask for 1/10th vote for every child given to mother or father and conservatives will win every election. There are other ways to improve the system, but this one is the easiest. Take politicians on when they saying about our children and make them to prove they care. If they don’t, they should be accused of neglecting children and their future and that will be the end of political life.

Ask for 1/10th vote for every child given to mother or father and conservatives will win every election.

So…because I went to college and got a job and didn’t have children outside of marriage, the vote of a high-school dropout with 6 kids by 5 different deadbeats should be counted as 160% of my vote? How is that fair? How is that going to fix anything? More than half the children born in America are born to single mothers, and very few of them are going to vote for smaller government programs.

“This has always been a source of frustration for me too!! As I have written here before about the ideological arguments (our strengths) of the left and right. On the one hand you have an ideology that has always ended in totalitarianism that has killed argueably 126 million people in 126 years in all its variations, it has an economic agenda that has ruined; or is ruining every country that it has ever touched, both socially and economically.
On the other hand you have an ideology based on the founding documents of the U.S. An idea (personal liberty, freedom, and individual responsibility) that has lifted untold millions all over the globe out of poverty and backwardness at the same time saved millions from oppression worldwide. This ideology also created the most prosperous society and least prejudiced that has ever been.
…and we are losing the argument? You’re kidding me right? NOPE!!”
Even if our politicians could get their messaging act together with the RNC it would make a huge difference.
The left captured the mainstream-the narrative-and our educational system because their ideology is immoral-bankrupt-and unfair. So they just keep chipping away as conservatives keep assuming the best of intentions from these people.
Keep up with this message Andrew-and thanks!

Too bad we don’t have someone like the billionaire George Soros on the Right who would be willing and able to put millions of dollars into conservative sources of information and influence like Soros does the Left.

Andrew Klaven: Are you honestly suggesting the daughters (or sons, let’s not be sexist) of elected officials are to be excluded from certain professions? Whatever you think about NBC, it is not a government appointment achieved by nepotism.

Do you even know Chelsea Clinton’s politics? You are taking a huge leap of faith that she is a mirror for her parents. Are you?

It seems to me that while she held the difficult position of ‘First Daughter’ she conducted herself with modesty and grace. She always insisted that she is neither a public figure nor running for election and her privacy should be respected while she stays out of the political spotlight. Even on the rare occasion that her father and mother used her, as an adult, for some political advantage her role was loyal daughter. I would hope that my children and yours would do no less for us if we ever decided to run for office.

Deegee, NBC is as short on journalistic credibility and as long on suspicion of liberal bias as any part of the mainstream media. Hiring someone as a reporter, wholly without journalistic experience, just because she is the daughter of a liberal Democratic President and a liberal Democratic Senator certainly won’t help NBC alleviate either problem. If the MSM has taken to hiring the children of famous politicians because they think that will improve their ratings, that means they’ve given up on credibility journalism in favor of celebrity journalism.

She has relevant university study and some experience in talking to the rich and famous. It would be the first time MSM thought that enough. Unless you can show NBC never hires correspondents without journalist experience you have no evidence for the claim she was only hired because of her father and mother.

BTW A major daily newspaper once offered me a job solely on the basis of a university degree.

They say that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree and with a mother like Hilary, with her involvement with Soros – Shadow Party which was organized by George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold McEwan, what are the odds that Chelsea is going to bring the viewers a balanced picture of the reality playing out before her eyes?

Oh, please – Andrew wasn’t arguing that children of politicians shouldn’t be excluded from certain professions such as broadcasting. Do you honestly believe that Chelsea Clinton was hired by NBC solely for her journalistic excellence? Can you link to evidence of past journalistic efforts – print, blog, video – by Chelsea Clinton that would have attracted the attention of the honchos at the NBC news division and caused them to declare, “Brilliant! That’s the type of incisive reporting that we need here at NBC!” Face it – she was most likely hired because she’s a moderately intelligent, telegenic child of a popular (liberal/progressive) former president.

deegee – How about Mika Brzezinski? That apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, and should we expect anything different for Ms. Clinton? Yes, NBC has every right to hire such people, but it tells us just where they are coming from.

I’ve always sided on giving Chelsea Clinton the benefit of the doubt on what she thinks about the world. I think that we can forgive her, her parents. Lets wait until she actually starts expressing her opinions about things before we judge her. For all we know, she might well be a rebel against Democrat dogma.

From out of the mass of trained journalists, Chelsea is chosen because of her intellect and opinion. She is the absolute best for this position; her qualifications allow her to bypass those other jobs that are neither glamorous or well paid, but allow the tens of thousands of others competing for the same position to train and learn the business as they work their way up the ladder. That is the advantage of being the daughter of the “smartest” woman in the world and having a disbarred serial rapist for a father, it can be called reverse Affirmative Action or as more honest people phrase the practice, nepotism.

I’m still waiting for NBC to hire Al Franken. After all, he’s already been on NBC (although on Saturday Night Live), he has far-left opinions, and he’s a moron who can read off of a teleprompter. He would fit right in at NBC. And, if they can’t get Franken, there’s always Obama after he’s thrown out of office in 2012.

It’s not that the MSM lies, it’s the omissions. After the mid term election landslide, the next day’s lead story on ABC radio was profiling of muslims, followed by some health scare, then the elections. After the “blue dress” was found, the lead story next day was apples are good for your health. We should all watch for the omissions, it’s comical.

Actually, I think the current approach is working. Yes, the left is fighting for the mainstream, but the Legacy Media’s readership/viewership shrinks every day as more and more people shut off the TV News for good and turn to sites like this one.

Patience, Grasshopper. The wreckage of 80 years of liberalism cannot be reversed in a single election cycle. We now have a Tea Party. We have the New Media. The MSM’s viewership/readership is dropping every day. The NYT is laying off reporters. The entire landscape so much more promising than even in 2008.

I have two children. One is in the military, practicing conservative values. Another attends Young Republican meetings in the middle of Manhattan. Both can argue in support of their beliefs and think for themselves. Whatever else we may or may not have accomplished in our lives, we did our job well with respect to our kids. Nothing else is more important.

Why don’t we make more attempts to seize the mainstream back from the dishonest left?

Mr. Klavan: I’d say the attempts are being made. I’m not sure you’re correct that only “the wrong sort” are making them. But we have a large problem, which arises directly from our degree of engagement: We’re angry.

Our country is sliding toward bankruptcy and tyranny. Our federal government no longer pays the slightest attention to the Constitution. Our military men are called upon for tasks well outside their proper role, and for efforts far beyond their strength. Our chief executive has demonstrated repeatedly that he holds us in contempt. And it enrages us, both in parts and in sum.

Angry people have a hard time communicating with others who don’t share their anger. It shows too easily. Worse, we can’t help but entertain the question “Why aren’t they angry too?”, which seriously muddies our ability to address them in terms they’ll find appropriate and congenial.

It would be nice, and inarguably more socially acceptable, not to be quite so angry…but given the state of affairs we’re in, it’s one hell of a lot to ask for.

Andrew…not sure if anyone who writes the articles pays any particular attention to the commenters (or just peruses them generally), but…this article of yours is certainly in my wheelhouse.

If I have a consistent theme running through my comments since the days I started commenting…as anyone who bothers to read what I write here will attest, this one is it.

The work done at NRO and here by VDH is a must read for me. I comment nearly every time he writes, sometimes to vent my own feelings and frustrations, sometimes just to support his brilliance. I am a huge fan of Jonah’s and don’t miss anything he writes. Stanley Kurtz is also a favorite of mine.

The folks here at PJM are my brethren. This is my home base for commenting. I consider Roger a hero for what he has done here…as well as Glenn. I consider the regular feature writers my cyber-friends, although I have met none of them. Including you.

My belief system considers the mass media empire to be conspiratorial in nature, robber barons of the truth, accessories before, during and after the fact in the attempted overthrow of the free market, assailants against the free flow of information and bagmen for leftists worldwide.

I don’t consider them “mainstream” nor will I ever….ever….be caught calling them that. If they are the main stream, I don’t want to drink from it. It’s polluted with lies, distortions and intentional destruction of the truth.

Nor do I now ever give them a pass on “not recognizing” or being “in a bubble” so that their distortions are “unintentional”. The coincidence probabilities have been shattered by the law of large numbers. Journolistas abound, some more stealthy than others, but there is a communal nature to the narrative, it never strays, there are no real outliers…and enough outed liars to obliterate the notion that their bias is subliminal.

MSNBC is the hard porn of small c communism, the Hustler magazine, spread eagle and not subtle.

But the opiate of the masses, the Matt Lauer, Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer wing of the morning show/evening news propaganda machine…is the soft porn of leftist agitprop.

Fox News is the only TV counterweight. Talk radio has its impact. Certainly the blogosphere attempts to fend off the onslaught of propaganda, the photoshopping, the faked documents, the disinformation, …but it’s a mountain of BS, built up over five decades…assisted by Hollywood and academia…backed by SEIU/ACORN street thugs and the Midwest Academy, Cooper Union, New Party strategy sessions…as well as nearly the whole of the Democratic Party. With “public” broadcasting in their pocket.

Add in Soros’ attempt to buy up the alternative media, Nancy Pelosi trying to “Fair” us out of a voice…it’s nearly a shock we can find the truth, facts and evidence at all.

The free market is under siege. Capitalism is in the throes of an overthrow attempt. The reason we can’t and won’t fight back at an institutional level, is because the coup is already in place. The peer pressure, smear campaigns, slanders and frothing, raging attack on ANY attempt to combat the overthrow will be met with charges of McCarthyism, character assassination attempts and worse. It’s much to ask.

If I make a billion dollars…I will do it. But, the non-leftists have been made timid and docile by the brutal and crushing retaliations for vocalizing anti-leftism. The Team Party has been smeared and slandered with charges as baseless as they are despicable.

By nature, non-leftists are not activists. They are rules followers, not rules breakers. They are not easy to get to rage against the machine. We sit there and take it, shake our heads in sorrow, dismay and disgust.

You are a better man than I…if you can get them to do more. The first order of business…is to get them to love the truth and want it…enough to fight against the smears and propaganda.

Until then, we can catch a few lies and block a few slanders and distortions …and do our best to hang on to the best nation that ever existed for a little while longer. In the end, thought…if we don’t love the truth enough to champion it, then we don’t love this land of ours enough to save it.

Weren’t you a contributor to Pajamas Media at some point in the not-too-distant past yourself? I seem to remember a post-Ryder Cup article. Your comments are among the more readable on this site but I find it strange that you feel they “float off into the blogosphere” when clearly they earned you a spot as a contributor.

Maybe you’re just playing for Delia’s sympathies you old rooster wink wink

Last year, during sweeps, O’Reilly made it very clear that the new sheriff in the nation is the Conservative MSM, by the numbers. Those of you who still use the old, outdated MSM—-meaning Main Steam Media—meaning The Left—-need to bring yourselves up to date. That MSM is much diminished, by the numbers, and becoming insignificant by the hour, day, week, month, year. Conservative MSM grows. Use the term. And for Heaven’ Sake, stop with the bellyaching whining about what the Liberal MSM does by ommision, commision, suppression, and outright lies. Who really cares anymore? Give your throats and vocal chords a rest.

There are tens of millions of conservatives, independents, and quite a few liberals who view, listen, and read Conservative MSM. And Conservative news/editorial organizations are all out there, with new ones arriving daily. Picked up The Weekly for the first time just the other day. When you add up television(Fox News, Fox Business, cNBC Kudlow), the newspapers, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Times; the magazines, NR, Weekly Standard, Commentary; the radio and Internet Conservative commentary, you begin to see that we have already taken control of the media.

I have stated many times that we need to stop referring to that Incredible Shrinking Audience entitled The Left as if they still controlled the national discourse in America. By referring the the MSM, meaning the Liberal MSM as if it were the dominant Media out there is to give them a position that is no longer valid. Referring to NBC,ABC,CBS, CNN, NYT,LAT, etc. as the dominant media is now false. Again: stop referring the the biased liberal media as the MSM. It is NOT anymore. The MSM is Conservative and it is US. Feel good about it.

Call it like it is. We have won. And we get stronger as we go. And yes, let still another Conservative TV channel come to life. Free enterprize will do it. And it will be easier after Election 2012, even if, Heaven Forfend, BHO limps in for another term. He will find things ungovernable. Watch what the new Congress is like. Just watch. Stay tuned.

Several decades of complete dominance, flanked by academia and Hollywood…make this, however, …wishful thinking.

Anyone suggesting that the war is over, quit pointing out and registering complaints against the lies, distortions and leftist agitprop..is simply declaring “mission accomplished” a bit too early.

In fact, it is a dangerous and unwise position, in my opinion. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the NYTImes, WaPo, the LATimes, most major metropolitan newspapers, nearly all of the weekly magazines, the wire services, …are Democratic party operatives…with a far left agenda. The impact of celebrity and academic banner carriers is also too large to ignore.

To suggest that since 2008 and the unvetted, completely covered up, and distorted, fabricated election of a committed radical is now “a thing of the past”…and we should just “shut up and quit whining”…because the propaganda machine has been defeated…clangs off the ear as tone deaf and not just a little bit smug.

I could not disagree with this comment more if it had been written by Paul Krugman. It has the same tone and is just as offensive.

I read recently that 80% of the public still get 80% of their news information from the biased MSM television broadcasting networks. Creating a conservative network to counter this overwhelmingly left-wing bias would seem to be the smart thing to do, and I’m surprised the subject has so rarely comes up. Conservatives could either buy an existing network, request that the government provide an alternative network to the left-wing PBS, or create a new network from scratch, as Glenn Beck is trying to do. If this were funded by a public stock offering, I’m sure that there would be a lot of conservatives willing to buy its shares.

The fact that Chelsea Clinton was hired by NBC should surprise nobody. It’s like any other situation where an influential parent has a kid who needs a job. What does he or she do? They put the bite on one of their good friends to employ the offspring. It’s called “nepotism.” The network news divisions and the Clintons are certainly “good friends” so young Ms. Clinton’s employment should come as no surprise.

Indeed. The networks have always been hotbeds of nepotism. Even Fox isn’t any better. Look at how many last names are the same as their more famous (and mostly commie) parents.
NBC used to have a policy that noone could hire their own kids. So did ABC. Anyone with a long memory knows they both used to be NBC red and NBC blue networks during radio days. Although they eventually became ABC and NBC, all those personnel remained best buddies. Their directors, producers, and technical people passed back and forth all the time. Both networks had rules forbidding the hiring of one’s own relatives, so they just hired the kids of their old compatriots from the other network, and vice versa. Their kids got extremely well-paying, easy summer jobs, and once they grew up, they had jobs. And you want to know why they act like they’ve lived their whole lives in a bubble? Politicians do much the same thing, but we can always unelect them, if we don’t like it. Noone tells the networks what to do. Freedom of the press, dontcha know.
The best part is that, if you were really lucky, you could eventually get a job at PBS (it’s amazing how many children of network types work at NPR and PBS), where one must die to lose their job. Besides, the pay was better, and you can shoot your liberal mouth off all day long. It was always viewed as the Holy Employment Grail. How many years has Dianne Rehm been on NPR? Fossils ain’t in it.
The McCains and Clintons are merely following in the nepotistic footsteps of the Wallaces, et al. They’re all suspect, in my book, but so is the entire industry they work for. It has always been up to us to not be so damn credulously simple as to think they’re telling us the truth and are not all just in it for themselves. Grow up. It’s time.

Exactly true. The mainstream media knows that if voter anger against Obama gets even worse an epidemic (for them) of straight party voting for the opposition will reduce the Democratic Party to a fringe radical group in Congress that gets steamrollered at every opportunity (and for good reason). The MSM has every reason to support dems to the hilt and no reason to be truthful if the politics of supporting them demands otherwise.

I’m finishing up a novel now that has a pro-military, pro-capitalist message, with some satire of higher education sprinkled on top, which will probably never see the light of day. Most novels don’t, I suppose, but if I get as far as a publisher I’ll probably be asked to throttle these elements. Then what? Cave and be published, or go to failure with my principles intact?

Baen Books has been very friendly to such novels. Military-fiction specialists Tom Kratman and John Ringo, among others, have published many books through them. If you’ve got the chops, I’m sure they’d give you a fair shake. Of course, the most important word in the previous sentence is “if.”

Alternately, you could “go indie.” The independent-writers movement has acquired quite a bit of force and is garnering a lot of attention. Look at SmashWords or Amazon’s CreateSpace as alternatives to traditional publishing outlets.

It’s a pretty good time to be a writer…especially if you don’t plan to live on the proceeds!

‘But why aren’t we reaching out for everyone else as well?’ The only way to reach everyone is by breaking up the media monopoly. First start with dismantling FTC, then stop cable companies from providing force content, everyone should be free to choose which channel will reach their house. This not only will cut off the revenue stream to Marxist media it will enable for opposition view point to flourish. Case in point if it weren’t for Comcast NBC will not have survived. No wonder why the left with help of FTC wants to control the internet, they are scare to death of a competition.

What is stopping conservatives from simply buying the most egregious left wing propaganda organs like the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CBS and changing their policies from the top down?

Wealthy conservatives could conceivably do this as individuals although, personally, I’d love to see less affluent conservatives pool their money somehow and buy one or two of the worst offenders and transform them. I’m not talking about a purge of all the employees, just a firm editorial hand that will insist that the journalism be of the highest possible standard and as unbiased as it is possible for humans to make it. This will probably be intolerable for the Hard Left members of the organization that really just want to write propaganda and they will leave to join other existing media outlets or start new ones.

If this approach is followed, we should see these newspapers, TV networks, etc. should become a lot more fair and balanced in fairly short order.

Klavan poses a good question. The answer, I think is the nature of conservatives themselves, who by nature are independent and self-sufficient. For people like that, it’s an unnatural act to step away from focussing on supporting themselves, their families and their businesses to organize decades long efforts to influence the culture. Essentially, conservatives are not natural politicians or “community organizers”.

And that is why the left, people who universally seek to dominate and control other people, has been so successful. They are an army of professionals, dedicated 24x7x365, often willing to do literally anything to gain power, against a much larger group of citizens who oppose everything they stand for, but who are only willing to spend a few hours a week at best on political activities.

We should actually be thankful that Rupert Murdoch saw a business opportunity and founded Fox. He may be the only person who has gone mainstream with anything close to a conservative agenda. Heritage, Cato, et al, are great, but their mission in life is not the mass market. Murcoch’s is.

I don’t think this will change. It explains why the left, not matter how thoroughly defeated, alway manages to come back.

In a nutshell, they stop at nothing, whereas life inevitably stops us.

Mr. Klavan, as always, makes superb points. But in many ways, the mainstream media are little more than one among many of the unfortunate outcomes of a battle that was waged and lost in other institutions, most notably our universities, from the 1960s onward. A friend of mine vividly recalls talking to a faculty member at an Ivy league institution in the 1980s. My friend’s foundation wanted to sponsor a seminar for a group of visiting foreign students that would examine the basic contours of American history and America’s fundamental values. The program, the sponsors hoped, would be presented objectively and disinterestedly. The faculty member snickered in that dismissive and condescending way that the smug seem to have mastered. Surely my friend and his colleagues were rubes who just didn’t get it. Reason? Objectivity? Disinterestedness? You must be joking. In his view, the very notion of “fundamental values” was quaint nonsense, and nothing more than a rhetorical tool used by those in power, etcetera, ad nauseam, etcetera. And here we are today, where one “narrative” is no better than another, no version of the truth more valid than any other, because the truth is itself an illusion and the only thing that matters is whether you can impose your “narrative” on others. This way of thinking is a betrayal of all that is good and redemptive about the West and its institutions. The damage done has been deep, and it will take much more than Rush and Fox to reclaim that heritage, which is clearly ‘on the ropes.’ But yes, it’s a fight worth waging, and our educational institutions are the key.

Where is Chelsea’s wedding ring? Why no hyphenated last name, has the multi-million dollar wedding already gone down the tubes? Perhaps she can do a co-anchor with Amy Carter. I’ve read that Jenna Bush got hired too but I suppose that is not such a coup.

Mr. Klavan, nice column. Back when I believed I was a liberal, I would read an occasional conservative column. Mainly George Will, and almost never Cal Thomas. I thought George’s print photos made him look curdled. I thought his opinions were curdled, and so was he, whenever I saw him on TV. And I had the same opinion of Cal Thomas, until I saw him on TV for the first time.

Bam! He might have been on Donahue. I thought, what a nice, gentle man. I also thought he was out-gunned. His was the only contrary opinion on the show. Every one was yelling, or having their say. Mr. Thomas sat quietly, waiting for his chance to speak. Occasionally he did. I didn’t agree with him, but he agreed with me.

It would be many years still, before I started to give conservative opinions any real thought. But whenever I read something I didn’t like, I would think how I knew of at least one conservative, who was not mean, or loud, or offensive.